Tara June Winch grew up on the south coast of New South Wales. She is of Wiradjuri, Afghan and English heritage. In 2004 she won the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writers and is the recipient of the International Rolex Mentor and Protégé prize, which saw her work under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka.

Her multi-award winning debut collection of short stories Swallow the Air was published by UQP in 2006 and won several awards. She is an ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Project and a former winner of the State Library of Queensland's Young Writer's Award.

Her writing has appeared in Best Australian Stories 2005, Griffith Review,McSweeney’s, Meanjin, Overland, VOGUE and VICE.

She is the founder of her own non-profit called 1000.org which is an advocacy project of 1000 of the world's most inspiring women writers, journalists and educators who facilitate literacy and education programs in their own regions and languages, and lobby their governments, with a global support network, for education for girls and women. She is also a mother.